Small-scale Cosmic Signatures of Feebly Interacting Massive Particles

Abstract

Feebly Interacting Massive Particles (FIMPs), if they exist, should be notoriously difficult to detect even indirectly. In order to constrain them, we derive bounds for feeble theories sourced via Standard Model fields by investigating their predicted signatures regarding small-scale structure formation. To achieve this, we obtain an analytic approximation for the phase-space distribution function for a generic dimension $\ell$ scattering operator. As a proof of concept, realizations of such theories are discussed, which provide a viable thermal evolution and are able to solidly solve the enduring small-scale structure challenges appearing in $\Lambda$CDM cosmology.